Category Archives: Pakistan

It is not a Muslim war of terror, it is a war by one small sect, a Wahhabi war of terror against all others. It is no more Islamic than claiming that the Holocaust was a Christian act (actually it was, across most of bigoted Central and Eastern Europe, not just Germany and Austria).

This Friday news agencies reported that the West African branch of Wahhabism, the Boko Haram, has attacked a procession of Shi’a Muslims. The suicide bomber killed about 40 and wounded over 20. No doubt there were other onlookers, Muslim Sunnis and others, who were murdered by the Wahhabi bomber.

In Paris last week the Wahhabis attacked public places and killed about 129 men and women of various religion (some of none). That was the second major terrorist attack in Paris this year.

In Beirut, Lebanon they attacked a marketplace three weeks ago. in an area that is predominantly Shi’a but also houses Sunni Muslims and Christians and Syrian refugees and possibly a few Wahhabi sympathizers. They killed over 40 people and wounded over 200. Western media headlined that the area was a “Hezbollah stronghold”.

In Iraq, in Baghdad and other towns they have been killing civilians in market places, mosques, and other venues for a few years. Mostly Shi’as are targeted, but no doubt they killed and injured Sunni Muslims and people of other faiths. Almost every day.

In Kuwait last June, the Wahhabi terrorists blew up a Shi’a mosque and killed 27 people, and wounded others. That was the second Wahhabi sectarian terrorist act in the country this year.

In Pakistan, the Wahhabis have been waging an aggressive war of terror against Shi’a Muslims for a few years. And against some others as well.

Last night news broke out of a terrorist attack against a Shi’a Muslim mosque in Bangladesh. The perpetrators were almost certainly local Wahhabi converts, as the Islamic State of DAESH claimed responsibility. In impoverished BanglafuckingDesh of all places.

This ugly sect that sprouted and spawned in what is now Central Saudi Arabia erroneously claims to represent Islam. Wahhabism, the official faith of Saudi and Qatari potentates as well as ISIS (DAESH) and Al Qaeda cutthroats, has been efficient in spreading its seed, its poison around the world for several decades. Fueled by petroleum money and indoctrination and hatred of the “others”. Encouraged by Western governments that ignore the “swamp” for the sake of fat weapons deals and other contracts. It has gained and won and bought converts throughout the Persian Gulf region, through Egypt and North Africa. And South Asia and Europe. Meanwhile the West is ignoring the Wahhabi elephant in the room, a very rich elephant, and perhaps there is the rub.
Now the whole world is reaping the results.

“Pakistan’s parliament on Friday unanimously approved a resolution promising the country will stay neutral in the conflict in Yemen, despite Saudi requests for Islamabad to participate in the coalition fighting Shi’ite Houthi rebels. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had summoned the emergency joint session to debate a Saudi request for Sunni-dominated Pakistan to send its warships, planes and ground troops to help the Saudi-led military coalition. A heated debate continued for five days, as many lawmakers strongly opposed any Pakistani military intervention in Yemen. They feared such a move would fuel sectarian tensions inside Pakistan………..”

Saudi Deputy Deputy Crown Prince (who is also Minister of Interior) Mohammed Bin Nayef Al Saud flew to Turkey last week. The common assessment is that he wanted Turkish help in the military operations in Yemen. That came just before President Erdogan flew to Tehran. Erdogan had blasted Iran for its alleged interference in Yemen (and other places), but after his Saudi and Tehran meetings he moderated his comments. Turkey is mostly Sunni, which means the sectarian-oriented Saudis think it can provide “Sunni” military help. The problem is that only about 75% of Turks are Sunnis, and the Turks could develop an Alevi or Shi’a problem that has been so far dormant, especially in the south.

Last weekend, Saudi defense minister, the youngster Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud flew to Egypt for meetings with his Egyptian counterpart, and possibly with Al Sisi. The Egyptian media has been gung-ho last week on intervention in Yemen, complete with headlines about the “Shi’a threat” to Egypt. Egyptian media are rarely subtle and almost never into due diligence, and some of them even accused “Shi’a and Iranian” agents of terrorist acts in Sinai. Yet Al Sisi seems hesitant about sending his soldiers into Yemen to fight for the Saudis. Some Saudi Wahhabi opposition groups, those who support ISIS and Al Qaeda, claim that he is holding out for more money from the princes. Yet Egypt has a history in Yemen that it would not want to repeat.

Pakistan under the Nawaz Sharif administration was seen as a reliable source of mercenary troops to fight the Saudi war in Yemen. Yet Mr. Sharif has met with Turkey’s Erdogan and with the Iranian FM Zarif last week. After which he threw the ball in the court of the Pakistani parliament with a request to authorize intervention. The Saudis are reported by some media to have asked for “Sunni” soldiers. But Pakistan is some 20% Shi’a (about 30-35 million of them), and it is already facing sectarian terrorist acts in some major cities. The Pakistani parliament voted this week unanimously against “renting” their army to the Saudi princes. After which Anwar Gargash, a minor state minister in the United ِArab Emirates played his best card. The UAE minister threatened that Pakistan will pay “a cost” for its decision not to join the war on Yemen. Meaning financial blackmail.

This leaves Egypt, which has been monitoring the Turkish and Pakistani developments. The only country among the three which has had experience fighting in Yemen in recent times. Will Field Marshal Al Sisi jump into the fray and provide canon fodder, at the “right price”?

“A Saudi Arabian prince did some serious damage on a recent hunting expedition, managing during a 21-day killing spree to put a vulnerable species a few thousand deaths closer to extinction. The Saudi royal’s trip to Chagai, Balochistan this past January landed him 1,977 rare houbara bustards, reports Dawn, Pakistan’s English-language newspaper. Other members of his party managed to bag 123 more. According to a report prepared by the Balochistan Forest and Wildlife Department – ”Visit of Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud regarding hunting of houbara bustard” — “the prince hunted the birds for 15 days in the reserved and protected areas, poached birds in other areas for six days and took rest for two days.” Pakistan’s come under fire for issuing special permits to Arab rulers allowing them to hunt the birds, which are off-limits to Pakistani citizens……………..”

Just a few decades ago, they did not need to travel that far for hunting hubara and other birds and animals. The Gulf and Peninsula region had an abundance, given the sparse population.

The princes and potentates have long since depleted the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf from many of its once-native birds and animals. These native creatures (I don’t mean the potentates) became rare, and some of them have vanished from the region. Then the potentates started seeking easier hunting grounds.

Years ago they started on the fauna of the Indian Subcontinent (mainly Pakistan and to a lesser extent Bangladesh) and North Africa (mainly Morocco). This has gone on since the days of the military dictator Zia Ulhaq (before he was incinerated in a helicopter “accident”). This has continued under other regimes, especially the Sharif brothers (Nawaz and Whatishisname) who seem to alternate power with the Bhuttos and have been very close to the Al Saud princes.

The princes have not yet acquired the East Asian craze for Rhino horns or elephant butts as alleged aphrodisiacs. Apparently not yet.

“Salami made the remarks after the Iranian and Omani naval forces staged their 4th joint exercises in the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf on Monday. He described the drills as successful, and said, “Based on a treaty between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Oman’s navies, the joint marine relief and rescue exercises are held every year in one of the two countries and the next drills will be conducted next year in Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.”……….. He said that Iran and Oman’s adjacency to the strategic Strait of Hormuz……………….”

“The Pakistani and Iranian navies have engaged in a four-day joint naval exercise east of the Straits of Hormuz this week in an effort to improve security cooperation between the two neighbors. The participating Pakistani warships, which arrived in Bandar Abbas on March 5, include the Agosta-70 class submarine Hashmat and the indigenously constructed missile boat Quwwat. They were returning from participating in the Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition, which was held in Qatar………….”

So said Brigadier General (not admiral) Salami, and that is no baloney.

Iranian forces have been holding joint maneuvers with neighboring countries. No, not with Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. They have been holding joint exercises with Pakistan, and others with Oman, both not far from the Strait of Hormuz. It is notable that both countries overlook either the Indian Ocean or the Arabian Sea. Oman has a small outlet on the Persian Gulf, that is the Musandam Peninsula right on the Strait of Hormuz. Most of its ports are on the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. It is interesting that the Omanis, who prefer to look outward to the sea rather than to their Wahhabi neighbors, have had good relations with all Iranian regimes. They even had an Iranian expeditionary force in the Shah’s days. This seems to continue.

Apparently the legendary (very) secret Persian Gulf Branch of Hezbollah (established in Riyadh and Manama and the Washington Post columns) does not pose a serious threat to Oman, yet.

Nothing new to get excited about here. The Gulf and the Arabian Sea are bristling with warships from every corner of the planet. All doing various exercises. The whole neighborhood looks like a schoolyard, with kids and navies playing war games around each other. And that is not counting the various foreign mercenary forces imported by lovable and beloved regimes to keep their peoples happily repressed.

“Deputy Secretary General of MWM Allama Deedar Ali Jalbani and his guard were killed by unidentified gunmen in a drive-by shooting near NED university in the eastern neighbourhood of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, two days after two Shia youths were killed by sniper fire in central Karachi. “Gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on the vehicle of Allama Deedar Ali Jalbani, killing him and his guard,” senior local police official Pir Muhammad Shah told news agency AFP. He said the latest attacks were part of targeted killings aimed at fuelling sectarian violence. An MWM official, Nasir Hussaini, also confirmed the incident. Later, three Sunni Muslim preachers were shot dead outside a mosque in the North Nazimabad area of Karachi. “Four gunmen came on two motorcycles and sprayed bullets on the members of an Islamic preaching group outside a mosque. Three people were killed in the incident and the attackers escaped,” Aamir Farooqi, a senior police official, told AFP. Farooqi said that two men among the deceased were of Moroccon extraction………..”

You’d think besotted Pakistan has enough of its own sectarian Salafi preachers, Wahhabi terrorists, and suicide bombers. You’d think that after decades of Wahhabi petro-money and their shaikhs brainwashing two whole generations in their (misnamed) madrassas that it has enough talent among the local yokels. You’ think they don’t need to import any Frenchified dudes all the way from Morocco. You’d be wrong, apparently.Cheers
mhg

“The violence in Quetta started early Thursday when unidentified gunmen killed Muhib Ullah, a junior police official, and wounded his four children as he was on his way to a market. The assailants escaped. Hours later, as the senior leadership of the Quetta police gathered for the funeral at Police Lines, considered to be a relatively secure official neighborhood that houses the lodging and offices of the police force, the suicide bomber evaded security measures and detonated his bomb. The explosion ripped through the funeral service as police officers and relatives scrambled for cover. One of the fatalities included a deputy inspector in charge of field operations, Fayyaz Ahmed Sumbal, who died in the hospital from his wounds. A low level insurgency has simmered in Baluchistan as nationalists have taken up arms against the federal government. The provincial capital has also been hit by sectarian violence as extremist Sunni militants have targeted Hazaras, a minority community belonging to the Shiite sect……………..”

His name, Muhib Ullah is, was, a hopeful sign: it means “Loved by God”. Apparently that love was not enough to save his life, or to save his children from harm. Nor was it enough to allow him a dignified peaceful funeral. In some places, the hatred is strong enough to go against a wishful name, strong enough to defeat the deity, be it called God, Allah, Yahweh, or whatever.Pakistan is one place where Salafi terrorism has taken deep root, where sectarian hatred is the norm in many regions. All courtesy of Wahhabi clerics and their ideology and the petro-money that helped spread it over the past few decades.

“The Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, militants said on Sunday, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with al Qaeda’s central leadership. More than two years since the start of the anti-Assad rebellion, Syria has become a magnet for foreign Sunni fighters who have flocked to the Middle Eastern nation to join what they see as a holy war against Shi’ite oppressors. Operating alongside militant groups such as the al Nusra Front, described by the United States as a branch of al Qaeda, they mainly come from nearby countries such as Libya and Tunisia riven by similar conflict as a resultof the Arab Spring……………….”

It was a natural step, given the variety of Arab, Chechen, Bosnian, and other cutthroats fighting the regime and each other in Syria. With Al-Qaeda and several of its franchises doing what they consider God’s murder in Syria, it was only a matter of time before the Taliban showed up.

Or maybe it is a trick by the Pakistani Taliban to drag Mr. Obama into the Syrian trap. It is no secret that the Taliban love Mr. Obama about as much as they would love any Shi’a ayatollah (which is slightly less than they approve of a bare-faced woman who can read). Given that the drones are attacking gatherings in Pakistan on a regular basis, it is natural for the Taliban to expect the drones to also enter the fray in Syria. On the other hand, that may fall in nicely with some neoconservatives who have been pushing for the US to bomb someone or something or somewhere in Syria. After all, drone bombing is still a from of bombing. It beats no bombing.Cheers
mhg

“President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched the project with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari at a ceremony on the border, hailing a blow to US-led sanctions targeting his country’s oil and gas sector. The two leaders unveiled a plaque before shaking hands and offering prayers for the successful conclusion of the project, which involves the laying of a 485 mile section of the pipeline on the Pakistani side, expected to cost some $1.5 billion. “The completion of the pipeline is in the interests of peace, security and progress of the two countries … It will also consolidate the economic, political and security ties of the two nations,”they said in a joint statement……………….”

This agreement on the gas pipeline was one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest foreign policy failures. She and her State Department worked hard to derail it. It did not threaten the security of the United States; it did not even threaten the more important security of Israel. Yet she tried all kinds of extremely expensive alternatives that would bypass Iranian gas fields. Every alternative was very uneconomical: Iran probably sits on the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas (possibly the largest). No doubt the Iranians also paid a price for the pleasure of thumbing their noses at the West. Controversial? Only in the United States media since it is not against any United Nations sanctions.

“In addition to provoking the West, North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday may have also been carried out on behalf of Iran, and in the presence of Iranian atomic scientists, a security expert warned on Tuesday. North Korea is making progress both in its nuclear weapons capabilities and its ICBM missile research, Dr. Alon Levkowitz, coordinator of Bar-Ilan University’s Asian Studies Program and a member of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, told The Jerusalem Post. “The most disturbing question is whether the Iranians are using North Korea as a backdoor plan for their own nuclear program. The Iranians didn’t carry out a nuclear test in Iran, but they may have done so in North Korea,” Levkowitz said. “There is no official information on this… but Iran may have bypassed inspections via North Korea. If true, this is a very worrying development.”………………”

This is purely Israeli speculation. But it is to be expected under the circumstances. It would be stupid not to speculate on this issue, even if the speculator is the right-wing Jerusalem Post which has an axe (possibly even ax) to grind. After all: it was Pyongyang which provided Bashar Al-Assad with all those nuclear facilities that probably existed only in Western and Saudi media but the Israelis bombed anyway for mysterious reasons.

Besides, does anyone know any country that willingly provided either nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology to another country? Other than the USA giving it to Joe Stalin, something which exposed both the two Rosenbergs to the undeniably barbaric horrors of the electric chair at Sing Sing. Justly or unjustly, I don’t know. A few years earlier, the Nazis would have tortured then beheaded them on the guillotine for it (or just for being there). But the electric chair must be more barbaric than beheading (provided the blade is sharp and the executioner is sober). I read somewhere that it took long minutes to die on the chair in those Rosenberg days. Like frying a burger at a greasy spoon. I don’t think anyone uses ‘the chair’ it anymore, I hope not, probably not even Texas nor any God-fearing neighboring states that we see in those BP commercials on TV. Executions of any kind are barbaric and only some theocracies (Muslim and Christian and other) in third world countries and the USA impose them.(Speaking of pushing nuclear weapons technology: I know there were reports about nuclear ‘pusher’ A.Q. Khan of Pakistan, who became their national hero, even more so than Osama Bin Laden. There have even been reports of the Pakistanis promising to supply the Al-Saud and the Wahhabi Mufti with nukes at some future date, if and when the princes decide to become a world power).Cheers
mhg

“The attack on the Hazara Shia community hall in Quetta has finally shocked the Pakistani state into taking action against the slaughter of that community in Balochistan. Haji Abdul Qayyum Changezi, a senior community leader, described it best on Sunday. “Our people are being massacred — 1,100 have been murdered in the last five years,” he said while speaking in a televised meeting with Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. “That’s out of a total population of 500,000 — a rate unprecedented anywhere in Pakistan.” While women and children have been killed, the high risk age group remains young males. Increasingly, the Hazara youth prefer to choose the life of the illegal immigrant. Certain death awaits them at home. All Hazaras fear that they could be the next target of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. For Pakistan’s deadliest militant group’s Baloch incarnation — they are the ideal target on both ethnic and religious basis…………The LeJ’s story is well-known — created in form of the Sipah-e-Sahaba in the mid eighties by militants and extremist demagogues by harnessing rising anti-Shia feeling in the Punjab. While the province has remained home base, the LeJ has slowly but surely spread its tentacles across the country. Its sectarian poison also found a fertile ground in the soil that was prepared post 9/11.…………”

Pakistan’s sectarian war of genocide preceded September 11 and its aftermath. Its seeds were planted in the 1970s, when Wahhabi petro-money started flowing into impoverished Pakistan, mainly from Saudi Arabia. With the money came clerics, shaikhs committed to spreading the intolerant Wahhabi doctrine of hating and excommunicating “others”. The new madrassas did their assigned job over the past decades. By the 1980s the Wahhabi inroad has deepened. Pakistan started seeing sectarian hatred in the open, and soon after sectarian killings spread, aimed at Shi’as. There are other minority faiths and sects in Pakistan that were also demonized by the Wahhbai ‘teachers’ and their disciples, but most of them are Shi’as (about one quarter of the population of Pakistan are Shi’as). And it is not confined to Baluchistan and not just against the Hazaras: it is widespread and suicide terror bombs often hit Shi’a mosques or funerals in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. There are occasional retaliations, but the terror and murder traffic is mostly one way. It is a shame that such a beautiful Arabic word, Madrassa, has taken a sinister meaning outside the Arabic and Islamic world. It simply means a school, a place where lessons are taught and learned. It was not intended to mean a place where imported hatred is planted in young minds to spawn future terrorist monsters. Cheers
mhg